No Más
"No Mas" is the first episode of the third season of Breaking Bad. Summary Men and women crawl on their bellies up a dusty, adobe-lined desert road. A Mercedes stops alongside the procession. Two men exit the car. Both wear well-cut suits and cowboy boots tipped with silver skulls. They look so alike, they might be brothers, but we will come to know them as "the Cousins." They too begin to crawl with the others. The procession winds to a candlelit shrine to Santa Muerte, a Mexican deity representing death. The two men rise to their feet. One makes an offering; the other pins something to the shrine: a sketch of Heisenberg. Back in Albuquerque, coverage of Wayfarer Flight 515's collision with a chartered plane dominates the television news. In the week since the collision, Donald Margolis has been identified as the air traffic controller who, distracted by grief over his daughter's recent drug overdose, misdirected the two aircraft (ABQ). Behind the White family home, Walt dumps his ill-gotten gains onto the grill and sets it ablaze. Seconds later, he doubts his decision and hurls the flaming grill into the pool. Skyler, meanwhile, meets with a divorce attorney who advises her that maintaining residence in the family home will strengthen her custody position. Skyler explains that Walt is moving out that day. Questioned about the family's finances, Skyler momentarily freezes. "You'd be amazed what I've seen partners hide from one another," the lawyer says. Hank arrives to help with the move just as Walt fishes the last of the cash — and the eyeball belonging to the pink teddy bear from the crash — out of his pool. Wrestling a duffel bag full of drug money away from his brother-in-law, Hank asks, "What have you got in there? Cinder blocks?" "Half a million in cash," Walt replies. Hank laughs. Jesse, still at the rehab facility, listens silently as the group leader describes self-acceptance as essential to transformation. The next day, Walt calls home from his new apartment. Walt Jr picks up the phone. "Nobody's telling me jackshit around here," he complains. Over Skyler's objections, Walter, Jr. arranges for Walt to drive him to school. Later at his apartment, Walt receives a one-word text: "POLLOS." At a school assembly, Walt fidgets while students and faculty talk about the crash. "Jesus H. Christ," he grumbles. Hearing this, Carmen encourages Walt to express himself. "Look on the bright side," he tells the incredulous audience: The death toll could have been much higher than it was. "People move on," he suggests. Outside a dilapidated desert farmhouse, the Cousins approach a clothesline. A young girl and her parents watch as the men exchange their well-cut suits for worn work clothes, keeping only their guns and their distinctive boots. They deposit the keys to the Mercedes on a goat's horn, and walk away. "Why don't you just come inside?" asks Walter, Jr. when Walt drives him home. "It's your house." Walt declines. Inside, Walter, Jr. screams at Skyler, "Why do you gotta treat him like this?" Marie says Walter, Jr. is probably "dying of curiosity" about the cause of his parents' separation. "I can't help you get through this," she adds, "if you won't tell me what it is that Walt did." Marie needs to be supportive without prying, Skyler responds. During a campfire rehab session, Jesse asks the group leader, "Have you ever really hurt anybody?" "I killed my daughter," the leader reveals. High on coke and booze, he accidentally struck his daughter with his car. "How do you not hate yourself?" asks Jesse. Guilt and self-hate, explains the group leader, stand in the way of true change. Skyler visits Walt's apartment to discuss divorce. "We are happily married — I am happily married," contends Walt. "You're a drug dealer," Skyler accuses. Drawing a connection with "that Pinkman kid," Skyler accuses Walt of dealing marijuana. "Methamphetamine. I'm a manufacturer. I'm not a dealer, per se," Walt finally admits. "There are a lot of angles to this," he says, but Skyler refuses to hear him out. She promises not to tell Hank or anyone else what Walt is doing — but only if he grants the divorce and stays away from the kids. "Let me the hell out of here before I throw up," she says as she runs out the door. Walt picks up Jesse from rehab. "I'm done using," Jesse says. He intimates that the plane crash was his fault because grief distracted Jane's dad. "You are not responsible for this," Walt insists. Radar malfunction was reported, he explains, and air-traffic control technology is antiquated. "You either run from things, or you face them," Jesse replies. He's learned to accept who he is: "I'm the bad guy." Walt visits Los Pollos and meets with Gus. Despite his great respect for Gus, Walt has decided to stop cooking meth. "I am not a criminal," he explains. Gus offers Walt $3 million for three months of work. "I have money," Walt says, declining. "What I don't have is my family." The Cousins, hidden amid a farm truck's bales of straw, sit with others sneaking across the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas. A young man brags to the Cousins about painting cars for Michoacan gangsters, but clams up when he notices the skulls on their boots. Shots sound. The driver stops the truck to investigate, then flees. The Cousins emerge from the bales and shoot the driver. The two set the truck and its murdered passengers ablaze. They walk away as the vehicle is engulfed in flames. Credits Main Cast * Bryan Cranston as Walter White * Anna Gunn as Skyler White * Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman * Dean Norris as Hank Schrader * Betsy Brandt as Marie Schrader * RJ Mitte as Walter White Jr. * Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Frings Guest Stars *John de Lancie as Donald Margolis *Carmen Serano as Carmen *Daniel Moncada and Luis Moncada as The Cousins *Julie Dretzin as Pamela *Jere Burns as Group Leader *Taylor Cranston as Sad Faced Girl Trivia *This is the second premiere episode to be directed by Bryan Cranston. The first was "Seven Thirty-Seven." Category:Season 3 episodes